Antibiotic use in children and the use of medicines by parents

Objective Antibiotic drugs are frequently used for viral infections in children. It is probable that health beliefs and parental concern have great influence on the use of drugs in children. This study, performed in The Netherlands, investigates whether the use of antibiotics in children is associated with the use of medicines by parents. Patients and methods In this observational cohort study, the authors selected 6731 children from the prescription database IADB.nl who did not receive antibiotics until their fifth birthday and 1479 children who received at least one antibiotic prescription every year. The authors then selected parents for each group of children (5790 mothers and 4250 fathers for the children who did not receive antibiotics and 1234 mothers and 1032 fathers for the children who regularly received antibiotics). The authors compared the use of antibiotics and other medicines between the two groups of parents. Results Parents of children who received antibiotics recurrently were found to use more antibiotics themselves compared with parents of children who did not receive antibiotics. Moreover, this group also showed a higher percentage of chronic medication use: (11.3 vs 6.2% (mothers) and 13.1% vs 9.5% (fathers)). Mothers more often use antacids, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), analgesics, anxiolytics, hypnotics, antidepressants, drugs for treatment of asthma and antihistamines. Fathers use more antacids, cardiovascular drugs, NSAIDs and asthma drugs. Conclusions The parents of children who receive antibiotic drugs regularly use more medicines compared with the parents of children who use no antibiotic drugs. Parents' medicine use may influence that of children and is a factor physicians and pharmacists should take into account

The SWADE model for landslide dating in time series of optical satellite imagery

Landslides are destructive natural hazards that cause substantial loss of life and impact on natural and built environments. Landslide frequencies are important inputs for hazard assessments. However, dating landslides in remote areas is often challenging. We propose a novel landslide dating technique based on Segmented WAvelet-DEnoising and stepwise linear fitting (SWADE), using the Landsat archive (1985–2017). SWADE employs the principle that vegetation is often removed by landsliding in vegetated areas, causing a temporal decrease in normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). The applicability of SWADE and two previously published methods for landslide dating, harmonic modelling and LandTrendr, are evaluated using 66 known landslides in the Buckinghorse River area, northeastern British Columbia, Canada. SWADE identifies sudden changes of NDVI values in the time series and this may result in one or more probable landslide occurrence dates. The most-probable date range identified by SWADE detects 52% of the landslides within a maximum error of 1 year, and 62% of the landslides within a maximum error of 2 years. Comparatively, these numbers increase to 68% and 80% when including the two most-probable landslide date ranges, respectively. Harmonic modelling detects 79% of the landslides with a maximum error of 1 year, and 82% of the landslides with a maximum error of 2 years, but requires expert judgement and a well-developed seasonal vegetation cycle in contrast to SWADE. LandTrendr, originally developed for mapping deforestation, only detects 42% of landslides within a maximum error of 2 years. SWADE provides a promising fully automatic method for landslide dating, which can contribute to constructing landslide frequency-magnitude distributions in remote areas

Use of antibiotics in rural and urban regions in the Netherlands:an observational drug utilization study

Background: Large livestock farms might increase the infection risk for the nearby human population because of an increased risk for disease outbreaks and because antibiotic-resistant bacteria are more likely to be present. We hypothesized that populations residing in rural areas have more contact with cattle compared with populations in urban areas, and will use more antibiotics or more frequently require a new course of antibiotics. Methods: Using data from the prescription database IADB.nl, we compared antibiotic use by patients living in rural areas to the use by patients living in urban areas. We also followed cohorts of antibiotic users and determined the patients who required a second antibiotic within 14 days after beginning the first antibiotic. Results: The yearly prevalence of antibiotic use was greater in rural areas compared with urban areas (2009: 23.6% versus 20.2% (p <0.001), especially in the younger age groups. More adult patients residing in rural areas required a second course of antibiotic treatment within 14 days after starting the first treatment. Conclusion: Individuals use more antibiotics, and adults more frequently require a second antibiotic prescription within 14 days, in rural areas compared with urban areas. Although the differences were small and the risks for the general rural population were not high, this difference should be investigated further

Antibiotic drug use of children in the Netherlands from 1999 till 2005

Objective Antibiotics are the most commonly prescribed drugs used by children. Excessive and irrational use of antibiotic drugs is a world-wide concern. We performed a drug utilization study describing the patterns of antibiotic use in children aged 0-19 years between 1999 and 2005 in the Netherlands. Methods We used IADB.nl, a database with pharmacy drug dispensing data covering a population of 500,000 people and investigated all prescriptions of oral antibiotic drugs (ATC J01) for children Results The total number of antibiotic prescriptions per 1000 children per year ranged from 282 in 2004 to 307 in 2001 and did not change between years during the study period in a clinically relevant way. The prevalence of receiving at least one prescription varied between 17.8% in 2004 and 19.3% in 2001. Amoxicillin was the most frequently prescribed drug (46.4% of all antibiotic prescriptions in 1999 and 43.2% in 2005). Between 1999 and 2005 there was a shift from the small-spectrum phenethicillin, a penicillin preparation [ratio 2005/1999 0.76; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.72-0.81], to amoxicillin/clavulanic acid (ratio 2005/1999 1.70; 95% CI 1.61-1.79) and from the old macrolide erythromycin (ratio 2005/1999 0.35; 95% CI 0.32-0.39) to the new macrolide antibiotic azithromycin (ratio 2005/1999 1.78; 95% CI 1.65-1.92). Conclusion The use of antibiotic drugs in treating children in the Netherlands is comparable to that in other northern European countries. Broad-spectrum antibiotics were prescribed more frequently than recommended by the guidelines and increased during our study period. Initiatives to improve guideline-directed antibiotic prescribing are strongly recommended

Factors controlling bed and bank erosion in the Illgraben (CH)

Debris flows can grow greatly in size and hazardous potential by eroding bed and bank materials. However, erosion mechanisms are poorly understood because debris flows are complex hybrids between a fluid flow and a moving mass of colliding particles, bed erodibility varies between events, and field measurements are hard to obtain. Here, we (i) quantify the spatio-temporal patterns of erosion and deposition and (ii) identify the key controls on debris-flow erosion in the Illgraben (CH). We use a dataset that combines information on flow properties, antecedent rainfall, and bed and bank erosion for 13 debris flows that occurred between 2019 and 2021. We show that spatio-temporal patterns of erosion and deposition in natural debris-flow torrents can be highly variable and dynamic, and we identify a memory effect where erosion is strong at locations of strong deposition during previous flows and vice versa. We find that flow conditions and antecedent rainfall (affecting bed wetness) jointly control debris-flow erosion. We find statistically significant correlations between channel erosion/deposition and a wide range of flow conditions, including frontal flow depth, velocity, and discharge, and flow volume, cumulative shear stress and seismic energy, as well as antecedent rainfall. Overall, flow conditions describing the cumulative forces exerted at the bed during an event, such as cumulative shear stress and flow volume, best explain erosion. A shear-stress approach accounting for bed erodibility may therefore be applicable for modelling and predicting debris-flow erosion. This work can provide input for model development by identifying correlations of flow and bed conditions with erosion that models should oblige

A landslide dating framework using a combination of Sentinel-1 SAR and -2 optical imagery

Landslides are mass movements of rock or soil down a slope, which may cause economic loss, damage to natural resources and frequent fatalities. To support risk management, landslide dating methods can provide useful knowledge about the date of the landslide and the frequency of occurrences, and thus potential triggers. Remote sensing techniques provide opportunities for landslide dating and are especially valuable in remote areas. However, the use of optical remote sensing is frequently hampered by cloud cover, decreasing the success rate and accuracy of dating. Here, we propose a landslide dating framework that combines the advantages of optical and SAR remote sensing satellites, because optical monitoring provides spectral changes on the ground and microwave observations provide information on surface changes due to loss of coherence. Our method combines Sentinel-1 and -2 satellite data, and is designed for cases wherein the landslide causes vegetation decrease and terrain deformation resulting in changing Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and SAR backscatter values. This landslide dating framework was tested and evaluated against 60 published landslides across the world. We show that the mean accuracy of landslide dating reaches 23 days when using combined Sentinel-1 and -2 imagery, which is a pronounced improvement compared to using only optical Sentinel-2 images resulting in an accuracy of 51 days. This study highlights that a combination of optical and SAR remote sensing monitoring is a promising technique for dating landslides, especially in remote areas where monitoring equipment is limited or which are frequently covered by clouds. Our method contributes to identifying failure mechanism by providing reliable date ranges of landslide occurrence, assessing landslide hazard and constructing landslide early warning systems

Factors controlling bed and bank erosion in the Illgraben (CH)

Debris flows can grow greatly in size and hazardous potential by eroding bed and bank materials. However, erosion mechanisms are poorly understood because debris flows are complex hybrids between a fluid flow and a moving mass of colliding particles, bed erodibility varies between events, and field measurements are hard to obtain. Here, we (i) quantify the spatio-temporal patterns of erosion and deposition and (ii) identify the key controls on debris-flow erosion in the Illgraben (CH). We use a dataset that combines information on flow properties, antecedent rainfall, and bed and bank erosion for 13 debris flows that occurred between 2019 and 2021. We show that spatio-temporal patterns of erosion and deposition in natural debris-flow torrents can be highly variable and dynamic, and we identify a memory effect where erosion is strong at locations of strong deposition during previous flows and vice versa. We find that flow conditions and antecedent rainfall (affecting bed wetness) jointly control debris-flow erosion. We find statistically significant correlations between channel erosion/deposition and a wide range of flow conditions, including frontal flow depth, velocity, and discharge, and flow volume, cumulative shear stress and seismic energy, as well as antecedent rainfall. Overall, flow conditions describing the cumulative forces exerted at the bed during an event, such as cumulative shear stress and flow volume, best explain erosion. A shear-stress approach accounting for bed erodibility may therefore be applicable for modelling and predicting debris-flow erosion. This work can provide input for model development by identifying correlations of flow and bed conditions with erosion that models should oblige

National laboratory-based surveillance system for antimicrobial resistance: a successful tool to support the control of antimicrobial resistance in the Netherlands

An important cornerstone in the control of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a well-designed quantitative system for the surveillance of spread and temporal trends in AMR. Since 2008, the Dutch national AMR surveillance system, based on routine data from medical microbiological laboratories (MMLs), has developed into a successful tool to support the control of AMR in the Netherlands. It provides background information for policy making in public health and healthcare services, supports development of empirical antibiotic therapy guidelines and facilitates in-depth research. In addition, participation of the MMLs in the national AMR surveillance network has contributed to sharing of knowledge and quality improvement. A future improvement will be the implementation of a new semantic standard together with standardised data transfer, which will reduce errors in data handling and enable a more real-time surveillance. Furthermore, the